Work is slow today, so slow that I actually took the time to read Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN.com. Have you ever read that bit? It may be the best named blog on the internet because it invokes the exact image of what it actually portrays, a guy sitting on a couch, covered in the detritus of chips and dip from watching football all day, commenting on the idiocy of those who played the game and, when he has run out of sporting news to pontificate on, turns political and cultural with the same lack of expertise, with a few shots of cheerleaders tossed in to keep his buds interested.

Think Rush Limbaugh crossed with your alcoholic uncle who keeps hitting on waitresses at sports bars, and you'll get the idea.

Anyway, today he took the time to tackle the movie Avatar. It was one of the most ignorant reviews I have ever read. Kinda gave the impression that the movie was An Inconvienient Truth in space, with a bit of commie-leftist American hate thrown in. It is clear that this guy had issues with the political leaning of the movie (Corporate greed bad, militaristic aggression bad) and so decided to throw the whole thing under the bus because of it. And he isn't the only one, nor is Avatar the only example of this happening, (else I would have put this in the Avatar thread.)

This strange need some people seem to have for their entire cultural identity to line up neatly with their ideological identity confuses the hell out of me. I am not a fan of country music... but when the country music community shunned the Dixie Chicks because they were against the War in Iraq I found the whole idea preposterous... if I needed ideological conformity from my music, I could just save myself money and buy a car without a radio.

Lots of Movies and other media have their own little morals, their own leanings. I don't always identify with them. For instance, I highly enjoy the novel Starship Troopers, despite the fact that it would be harder for the novel to be more right wing in ideology, I love the exploration of the characters and the mindset. And much as I despise the Left Behind novels, it is their writing which turned me off, not the theology which is so different from my own.

Even funnier are the occasional allegations that movies like Avatar are anti-American, because all the bad guys are so clearly American themselves. It's like calling the original Star Wars movies anti-British.

Maybe I am just bored and ranting. (Maybe you already cut me off 'cause you don't like my message.) But since such a huge part of movies like Avatar is the Suspension of disbelief, I think a lot of people sabatoge their movie-going experience (and, thus, wasting their own money) by being unable to separate themselves from their own ideologies long enough to enjoy the story.

For those who go so far as to call the movie an attack on THEM, personally... well, I think we may have more of an inkblot situation there than anything else.